


The Towpath

by PhantomEngineer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Female Severus Snape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-05-04 16:56:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14597508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: The Marauders, like a lot of the school, had never really noticed that Severus was a girl. This fact takes them rather by surprise when James removes her pants by the lake. Lily is furious with Severus, but she’s also furious with everyone else. Sometimes, it’s just easier to stick with the devil you know. It doesn’t mean everything is fine between her and Severus, but it’s not yet the end of the road.





	1. Chapter 1

The faint disappointment James had felt at Lily storming off had been somewhat mollified by the fact that he still had Severus easily in his power. Remus, for his part, felt a slight twinge of guilt, recognising that having his pants exposed in front of the whole school would be a humiliating experience he would hate to have himself, not to mention the idea of having them removed. But he got over it. Severus had after all called Lily a mudblood, which pretty much justified everything. He had proved himself to be unworthy of basic human decency, like all Slytherins ultimately were.

As one, the Marauders felt a slight hint of delight spread through them. Not only were Severus’s pants clearly old, the colour long since faded to grey with countless washes, but they seemed almost lacking. Exposing someone else’s penis in front of the whole school was probably cruel, though given that it was Severus it was more a case of being funny. It would be humiliating. Showing the whole school that not only was Severus too poor to afford to buy new underwear but also that he had a small penis to boot was really just the icing on the cake. James felt a wave of pleasure rush through him, grinning as he removed the baggy pants positioned neatly in front of his face, tossing them to the ground with a dramatic flourish.

All of the Marauders found their smiles faltering, confusion and uncertainty striking. It was the first time any of them had actually seen the female genitalia up close, and they weren’t expecting it. It occurred to James that he had accidentally had his fingers incredibly close to a girl’s private parts, and that he had removed her knickers in front of the school. Severus was still snarling, unable to speak or move, clearly distressed. The Marauders backed away, cancelling their spells to leave Severus a heap on the floor. No one was laughing, instead there seemed to be a variety of confused mutterings going round their audience. It was not the reaction they were used to, normally they did something awful to humiliate Severus and the whole school laughed uproariously at their pranks.

“Let’s go play Quidditch,” Remus suggested, something he knew would be fun. It would probably be the kind of thing that would get the rest of the good parts of the school, the Gryffindors and some of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, playing as well, bringing back the good cheer that Severus had churlishly killed.

“Yeah,” James agreed, flashing a grin, “Good idea!”

It was later that evening, in the Gryffindor Common Room, that they noticed Lily. James sauntered over, seeing an opportunity. She would be hurt by having been insulted by her friend who he had finally managed to reveal as being as prejudiced and innately evil as any other Slytherin. He had done the world a favour in that respect. The fact that Severus was a girl still confused him, and made a lot of his efforts over the last year a waste. He had thought Severus was a threat, to be a boy who in some way had designs on the girl he considered to be his, but knowing that he was a she changed everything.

Mary McDonald had just entered the Common Room, making a beeline for Lily, but James wasn’t particularly interested in her tale of how Severus was outside the Common Room, wanting to speak to Lily. He smiled at her, hopefully. She glared at his approach, as well as at Sirius who had followed him. Remus and Peter shuffled after them, slightly more intimidated by her seeming anger.

“I heard what you did, you cockwomble,” she said angrily.

James rolled his eyes uncomfortably. Maybe stripping a girl of her underwear in public wasn’t a very chivalrous thing to do, even if it was a Slytherin. Even if it was Severus Snape.

“I wouldn’t have done it if I’d have known Snape was a girl,” he protested, which was true. He didn’t see how he could be at fault for that. Had Severus been a boy then it would have been hilarious. Humiliating and memorable, but really funny for the whole school. A great ending to their OWLs. The sort of memory everyone could giggle over all summer. Lily stared at him, not looking in the least bit impressed.

“To be fair,” Mary said, “It kind of is Snape’s fault. I mean, look at the way he, well, she, looks. No one thinks she’s a girl, no one knew. She acts like a boy. It’s her own fault that people treat her like a boy,”

Lily turned her gaze to her friend, looking almost shocked, “So, it would be completely alright to just strip and grope someone if they were a boy? Or that it’s alright to do things to people because you never bothered to notice that Severus has always been a girl and has been sleeping in the girls’ dorms in Slytherin since first year?”

“Oh come off it Evans,” Sirius snapped, annoyed at her, “We’d never have done half the stuff we did to Snape if we knew he was a she,”

Lily flung her book at him, leaping up and storming out. She nearly tripped over Severus, who was sitting curled up on the floor by the Fat Lady. Severus had never cried prettily. She had never really done anything prettily. When Lily had first met her, Petunia had judged her to be a dirty little boy, as surely nothing that scruffy could be a girl. She hadn’t had long hair like a girl. But then again, Lily had reasoned, she hadn’t had short hair like a boy. She hadn’t worn clothes like a normal girl but she hadn’t dressed like a normal boy either. She had just been extremely, uniquely Severus.

So Lily had asked, after a while, wondering. She had after all grown up reading _The Famous Five_ , and she knew that George was a girl called Georgina, a tomboy who liked to have adventures like the boys did. And Severus had smiled her slightly crooked smile and said, “I’m a girl,”

Lily had never corrected anyone who assumed differently. George had always put effort into pretending to be a boy, at least in the first few books. George had always been pleased when people mistook her for a boy. Lily had always rather wanted to be like George, brave and strong, but her mother had never let her cut off all her hair. Her name was uncompromisingly girly. She had reluctantly accepted that just like Severus was George, brave, stubborn and liable to do things however she wanted regardless of anyone else, Lily was Anne, kind, sweet and patient. She had wondered initially if Severus really was Severus’s name, or if it was like the way George had always gone by George, a masculinised name, but she’d never asked. It didn’t make any difference to her. If Severus wanted to be called Severus then that was what Lily would call her, only Lily had mostly called her Sev. But the name that had been read out at the sorting had been Severus Snape, so she had just accepted it. It wasn’t a normal name for a girl, but Severus wasn’t a normal girl. Severus wasn’t a normal name for a boy either. Severus was a witch with a mind of her own, though maybe for too long Lily had assumed that Severus could exist unchanging in a world that demanded conformity. 

Lily started crying too, slumping down against the wall to sit by Severus. She’d realised as they grew up that Severus wasn’t George and she wasn’t Anne. Severus was Severus and she was Lily. Lily didn’t know where that left them. Two girls crying on the hard stone floor, together and alone at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” Severus sniffled, words that were obvious. Lily wanted to hear them, but more than that she wanted to unhear her saying the word _mudblood_. Sorry couldn’t undo that, couldn’t take back what had been said. It helped though. Not much, but it was something. Better than nothing. Lily hoped that Severus was sorry, truly sorry, for everything the word contained, all the connotations and prejudice that it managed to reduce to those two, hurtful syllables. She hoped she wasn’t just sorry that Lily was hurt and angry, that those two syllables had potentially shattered their friendship forever. 

It might have, Lily thought sadly. It might still. But she had precious little else left. Maybe had the girls and boys of Gryffindor not upset her, then she could have simply given up and transferred her affections elsewhere. But she was not sitting in her Common Room, surrounded by friends comforting her, consoling her over the shock at being called a slur by her long-term best friend. She was sitting on the floor of the corridor, crying beside her best friend who she was unsure she could remain friends with, unsure if she could remain friends with anyone.

“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” she choked out. She had never been one for crying prettily either, the way people seemed to manage in books and films, beautiful women with dainty tears elegantly tracing a trail down immaculate cheeks. There was too much snot, too much shuddering of breath and too much ugly vocalisations for crying to ever be anything other than a deep expulsion of emotion in her experience.

“I’ll be better,” Severus sniffed. Neither of them had tissues or handkerchiefs, their tears dripping freely, sniffling unglamorously, occasionally swiping away at drips with robe sleeves. Two outcast teenage girls sitting on the floor, just as they had once been two odd little girls playing on the ground back in Cokeworth. It was just the way things had always been, Severus saying things with her sharp tongue and Lily becoming angry, upset, hurt by the words. Lily had always forgiven her, but those cruel words had never been directed towards her before. In some ways, Lily found herself suspecting that she might prefer the devil she knew to the ones she didn’t. There was a certainty with trying to mend bridges with Severus. She did take on board all of Lily’s lectures about what was too mean.

“Is that how you really see me?” Lily asked, tears still falling. It was important to her to know.

Severus shook her head vigorously, greasy black hair flying. Girls were supposed to care about their hair, keeping it clean and pretty. But Lily had rolled her eyes at James’s constant styling of his hair, the way he had always taunted Severus for her lack of interest in such matters. That was all just Severus, her tendency to focus on other things. In exam season it made sense to Lily that Severus would be too distracted to remember to wash her hair as often as it really required. She was better for most of the rest of the year. It had never bothered Lily. She too would play with her hair incessantly whilst revising, which she knew made it greasy much faster than normal. She just tended to wash it more at those times, indulging in the relaxing sensation of massaging shampoo into the skull that was being filled up with information she had to remember, whereas Severus would emerge from the haze of exam times with the slightly confused realisation that her hair seemed greasy. In some ways, it was adorable, so Lily rarely said anything. She loved those moments of utter confusion, as if Severus had spent the last little while so entirely consumed with the thoughts in her head that she had failed to noticed such basic human functions. Lily was more careful to remind her to eat and sleep, though, as that was important. She never really knew if Severus did remember to go to bed once she sent her off to Slytherin after one of their study sessions, but food at the very least she could poke in her face.

And yet it had started to irritate her somewhat at the same time. She couldn’t understand how someone could be both so clever and so stupid at the same time. Severus could so easily learn anything, create new spells and improve potions with so little effort, a talent that seemed as straightforward to her as breathing. The innate motor skills of walking, placing one foot in front of the other, seemed to be the same ones Severus used to comprehend magic, teasing out the complexities behind spells to form her own. Lily couldn’t understand how despite this, Severus was still at times so barely able to take care of herself. Prone to becoming so wrapped up in the world inside her head that she would forget to care for the body that bore her brain. Lily wondered suddenly, annoyed, if that idiocy was present too in her inability to see that Dark magic was dangerous and that the direction that many of the Slytherins seemed to be heading in was definitely bad news. 

They sat in silence, though it wasn’t very silent. They were both still sniffling, the sounds echoing through the lonely corridor. Lily was glad no one else seemed to be coming or going from the Common Room. They really should move somewhere different, but that seemed like a commitment that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to make. A false promise of false hope to Severus. So they stayed there, cold stone underneath them. Cold, empty air around them.

“I’m sorry,” Severus said again, eventually. It was cold, for all that it was supposed to be summer. Castles tended to be cold, even magical ones. Corridors weren’t designed for people to spend a lot of time in them, especially not sitting on the floor. Lily hoped she was sincere, but sincerity didn’t change the past. Sincerity didn’t fix things. It could be a start, but Lily was unsure if she could trust Severus. She looked at her friend sadly. 

“If I do forgive you,” Lily said eventually, “I don’t think I’ll be able to do it again. I don’t know if I can, but I guess we can try. Maybe. I don’t know if I know you anymore…”

“I promise I’ll do whatever you want, just tell me,” Severus begged, and Lily wondered how someone could be so strong, so confident, so unapologetically themselves and simultaneously so pathetic and desperate. She wondered if it was fair, to ask Severus to steer away from dark magic, to avoid the Slytherins she mistrusted, to follow a path that Lily approved of. She wondered if it was fair to not say anything, to walk away and leave. Neither option seemed right. She sighed.

“It’ll take time,” she said realistically, because healing always took time. Magic could fix cuts and broken bones, but emotional wounds healed the same way in the wizarding world as they did in the muggle one. Slowly, painfully, leaving scars. A part of life and a part of growing up. Sometimes the wounds never did heal properly, rotting and festering away under the surface. Sometimes they cauterised, burning away all that had existed, the blood flow stopped but leaving a vivid scar. She had thought, for a brief while, that that was what had happened to their friendship. A wound that had been growing, a small cut torn open and ignited by their tempers. They both had tempers. In that they were both like George, a comparison that no longer meant anything to Lily. They were Lily and Severus, girls from Cokeworth that had never quite belonged there and who didn’t quite belong in Hogwarts either. 

There were tears in Severus’s black eyes, overflowing and dripping past black eyelashes down already tear streaked cheeks. Her eyes were red, and Lily imagined her own were too. They felt like they should be red and puffy. Severus rarely cried, it was one of those things Lily had always found admirable. Tough and strong. It also gave her a sense of honour, that she had seen Severus cry on the few, rare occasions that tears did gush forth. Severus had always seemed to hate crying, an act that more often than not was a complex mix of emotions rather than just a clean, clear reaction to pain or sadness. Severus cried with anger and humiliation, with bitter misery and desperate hatred, feelings crashing into each other and welling forth in ugly, all consuming sobs that shook her whole body. 

This time it was just pure misery. Guilt and sorrow, no anger or the usual attempts to hide. It was almost as if it was too deep a devastation to be overwhelmed with the other mix of emotions that surely must lurk beneath the surface, as if the embarrassment and anger at the Marauders had been swept to one side as irrelevant. In some ways that scared Lily, the most clear and obvious sign of love that Severus could give, and yet it was provided almost subconsciously. She’d always known, deep down, that their fragile friendship mattered to Severus. She’d never given it much thought really, beyond the casual reassurance that they were best friends and would remain that way. Now it seemed to occupy her mind, burrowing deep down inside of her. Now the potential loss mattered to her more than she had thought it would.


	2. Chapter 2

Lily was glad when term ended, those final few days seeming to drag on forever. She avoided Severus. She avoided everyone. She avoided the good weather outside, and more than everything else, the lake. That was where everyone else went when the Scottish summer turned warm, but she didn’t want to go back there. She needed some distance. She didn’t want to talk to the people who she had always considered to be her friends. She didn’t want to be around the Marauders more than was strictly speaking necessary. She didn’t want to do anything or think anything. 

She had grown to dislike the summer holidays, finding herself increasingly distant from her family. Her parents couldn’t comprehend the life she lived, or the future that her new world held for her. She no longer belonged fully in their muggle world. Petunia’s sharp words and dislike had only increased with time, though now it would be easier. Petunia had moved to London to get a job, so at least Lily knew she would be spared that. It still made her heart heavy, to think that things were awkward at home and at school. To think that she had no where that she could just relax and be at peace. That no matter where she went there would be people who didn’t understand her, who didn’t want to. That there would always be walls between them, simply because of who she was. At home, she had been set apart because she was a witch. At school she had been set apart because she was a muggleborn.

The more she thought about it, the more disturbed she was. In the moment, she had been angry with Severus and hurt beyond belief. Afterwards though, she couldn’t help but feel discomforted. It sounded awfully like sexual assault, and she couldn’t help thinking how it would feel to be exposed in front of the school. She had heard that the Marauders had been told off by McGonagall, but that their defence that they had assumed Severus to be a boy had been accepted. Lily knew it was almost certainly the truth. Everyone had made that assumption quite easily. That was what most people had taken from the encounter, the shocked excitement that Severus was actually a girl. It didn’t make the whole incident Severus’s fault, even though that was the way most of the other girls in her dorm seemed to think. It was making her wonder, about her robes. About whether, if she wore muggle clothing one day to Hogsmeade, would they say she had brought on any taunts of _mudblood_ yelled at her herself? Just like how her mother had always forbidden her from wearing miniskirts in summer, because that kind of girl was easy and risked rape, though her mother had also said it wasn’t really rape with girls like that.

She was in a bad mood when she boarded the train, and searched through the carriages to try and find one that was empty. She had no such luck, which annoyed her more than she already was. Severus had clearly had the same idea, and had claimed a carriage all for herself, curled up reading with her feet on the seat, showing her odd socks to the world, her boots abandoned on the floor. They weren’t the kind of boots that girls wore, plain black and tough. Comfortable, Lily imagined, but belonging to a different genre from her own neat court shoes. Hers were pretty and delicate, like she herself was. Feminine. Severus’s were practical and plain, just like Severus was. Unisex at best, the kind of boots that wouldn’t be out of place on the feet of a boy.

The nice, sensible part of Lily said that she should be with the rest of the Gryffindor girls, who would be talking cheerfully about nothing in particular in another carriage. Most of Lily wanted to be angry, to continue being angry and feeling that she was allowed to be angry. She wanted to sulk alone in a carriage, curled up around a book where the princess killed the dragon, then turned her sword and fury on the princes and knights who wanted to save her, to marry her and reduce her to the role of their bride. That Severus had beaten her to it served to infuriate her, but a part of her wouldn’t back down. The part that had probably been responsible for her being sorted into Gryffindor. She still wondered if life would have been easier had she been anywhere but there. Or if Severus had been anywhere but Slytherin. She felt intense pride and love for her House, just as she knew that Severus did for hers, but a rational part of her wondered if they wouldn’t have been happier lost in the library as Ravenclaws or dismissed as nothing worth considering like the Hufflepuffs were. She knew that they would both have set fire to the castle and started a revolution by the end of their third year had they been in Hufflepuff, given that she couldn’t imagine either of them taking the dismissive assumption that they were nice people whose lives revolved around food with anything resembling good grace. They had both always been too temperamental, too quick to anger and too quick to take offence. It was just the first time they had truly done so with each other. It was probably why they were in Gryffindor and Slytherin, great Houses in their own right but with a history of arguments, of fighting. Of enmity. 

She sat down, silently and without making eye contact, the two of them opposite each other but not looking. She could see, out of the corner of her eye, that Severus had watched her take her seat, but they didn’t speak. Lily drew out a book, not anything like the kind she wanted to read, but better than nothing. Better than conversation. She didn’t want to look at what Severus was reading, didn’t want it to be something about Dark Magic but didn’t want it to be something else at the same time. Didn’t want her to be as bad as Lily sometimes thought she was, didn’t want her to be better than Lily sometimes thought she was. 

They might have gone the whole journey in that awkward, angry silence. Words unspoken combined with words that couldn’t be unspoken. An uncomfortable compromise that left neither of them happy. Infuriating and angering her own friends, that she could feel sympathy still for her friend, while they infuriated and angered her for their lack of it. Severus, she just wondered about. She had always spent a lot of her time with the Slytherin boys, when she couldn’t be with Lily. Another reason that she seemed like a boy, though Lily couldn’t imagine her in the company of the sleek, elegant Slytherin girls. Girls who seemed like ladies, already grown up even in their first year. And yet she knew that Severus slept in the same room as those girls, who no doubt felt the same displeasure at the prospect of having to spend seven years sharing a dorm with a scruffy girl who was about as far away from being a lady as a decaying badger corpse was from being a lion.

Her book wasn't very interesting, though. It could easily have been her mood affecting her opinion, wanting something more than her textbooks. Wanting something that spoke to her, rather than taught her in the dry, methodical manner of instruction. She kept looking up, out of the window, without really appreciating the scenery. It had been beautiful and wonderful in her first year on her first train ride towards Hogwarts. Her and Severus had been in bad tempers that time too, as if serving as an omen that hung over their sorting into opposing Houses and the eventual breakdown of their friendship.

That time had been Severus's fault too, she thought uncharitably. Severus had gone and spoken with her big, sulky mouth that said nasty things people weren't supposed to say. Lily knew that blaming Severus entirely for everything that lay between her and Petunia was unfair, but she also knew that she wasn't entirely without blame. If Lily had never met Severus, had never been drawn into the wizarding world prematurely then maybe the sisters’ relationship would not have soured quite as much. Or at least not as quickly and intensely as it did. Severus was always there, between them. Always a reminder of what separated them, drawing Lily where Petunia could never hope to follow.

Severus didn’t need to be so confrontational with Potter and Black when they first met, though. She had not considered her words or softened her stance, and they had reacted just as negatively to her. Maybe, Lily wondered, maybe if Severus had held her tongue for once in her life, the whole problem wouldn’t have developed. But just because Severus had a tendency towards antagonising people and the Marauders in particularly didn’t justify the way they had treated her at the lake. Even the fact that she had called Lily a mudblood didn’t give them the right to do that to her. It gave Lily a right to be angry, to argue with her, to sever their friendship, but it wasn’t anyone else’s business. And yet, still, if Severus made more of an effort to be kinder it would be so much easier. Lily had defended her steadfastly against the entirety of Gryffindor, none of whom really liked the sharp-tongued Slytherin that Lily had remained friends with. She knew that there would have been a collective sigh of relief had she cut Severus off and that been the end of it. That none of the girls she had considered to be her friends would have understood that it would have been a painful thing. That none of those girls had ever really looked at Severus beyond seeing the scruffy, spiky exterior.

“Would it really kill you to be nice?” she asked suddenly, snapping out her irritation at Severus almost without meaning to. She had not intended to speak to her, not really having anything to say, but this was something she wanted to complain about. Life would be easier for her is Severus was nicer. Life would be easier for Severus if she was nicer too, Lily had no doubt about that. People might actually like her, though it was probably a bit too late for that. She had been too nasty for too long and to too many people. It wasn’t really surprising that she was so disliked. 

“Nice?” Severus cried out in a kind of anguished anger that Lily wasn’t used to hearing her use, “Nice?”

There was an impasse, as Severus’s face seemed to contort through a variety of emotions, her hands clenching on the book in her lap. Lily wondered for a moment if the idea was too foreign for her and that her brain had short-circuited, and she had to admit that the idea of Severus being all sweet and nice was actually relatively creepy. It was in many ways the polar opposite of her personality. It was strange that the elements that Lily had once admired and wished she could emulate were the aspects that now drove her to distraction, irritating her and serving to tear them apart. 

“Why should I be nice to other people?” Severus asked, and had she been anyone else Lily imagined she would have cried, “No one’s ever nice to me. No one treats me like I’m a person or that I matter. You’re the only one who’s ever been kind to you and I’m not even good enough for you.”

Lily had never really considered that before, and she fell silent, unable to provide an answer. Severus was looking at her with a betrayed desperation, as if she regretted her outburst but also felt too deeply hurt by Lily’s question to retrain her feelings. As if there were years of complaints and grievances buried beneath the surface that were on the verge of breaking free and spilling out of her.

“If you didn’t antagonise the Marauders…” Lily started, but Severus interrupted her, a complete reversal of the way that things had normally happened.

“Antagonise them?” Severus exclaimed, slamming her book down, all thoughts of being on her best behaviour or not saying anything to upset Lily going out the window, “Antagonise them? I don’t. They seek me out and it’s always the same, four against one. They go easy on me when you’re around, and it’s safer when I’m with Mulciber or Avery, but if I happen to be alone it’s awful. As if they have a specific desire to drive me away from their wizarding world that I don’t belong in, just like no one in Slytherin thinks I belong in it. Like I should be eradicated and bullied and humiliated just for existing, as if my great crime was breathing. Breathing their air, sleeping in their castle. It’s always the same,” there was a shuddering indrawn breath and Severus went on, “What do you think life is like for me in Slytherin? I’m a poor halfblood, I can’t ever be anything else. I’m not a proper girl like them, all pretty and immaculate, I’m never going to find some rich pureblood to marry me, even if any of them would marry someone whose dad were a muggle. I’m not rich, I’m not pretty, I’m not a pureblood. But I can’t make friends with anyone else, can I? The Marauders are always there, always making sure that I’m tormented.”

Severus voice had lost any of the smoothness or eloquence that she normally kept when she spoke at Hogwarts, returning to the rougher and more patchy accent that Lily had first heard her use when they were children, the strange amalgamation of Cokeworth working class with flashes of a refined higher class intonation that came and went erratically.

“None of your friends like me. None of the other Houses want to be friends with a Slytherin,” Severus continued sadly, looking away from Lily and out of the window, “And none of the Slytherins want me in their House. If I keep my head down and do my best to fit in, keep my mouth shut as best I can around Mulciber and Avery, then it’s tolerable.”

Lily was silent for a while, having nothing much to say to refute any of Severus’s claims. It was true that she had no idea what life in Slytherin was like, and if the people who she all thought were odious really were as bad as she believed them to be then it could be difficult for Severus. She had noticed that the Marauders tended to target their attacks on Severus, but Severus seemed to be suggesting that there was more that happened away from her line of sight, that it went far deeper and far crueler than she had thought. That maybe the moment at the lake was only shocking to her and not quite such a deviation to the interplay between Severus and the four Gryffindors who were always together, always moving as one, always a united front. 

“Mulciber and Avery really are awful,” she said finally. The words _so are the Marauders_ went unspoken, but they hung in the air between them regardless. Lily was glad that Severus didn’t object to her statement, just giving a noncommittal shrug suggesting a degree of acceptance. She was also glad that Severus didn’t bring up the Marauders, or anyone else that Lily might have only seen one side of. She could remember the Marauders being boisterous and disruptive in first year, frequently barging her and Severus as they walked between classes, always being an annoyance. They had never been anything more than that to her, a constant irritation who seemed to have a particular dislike of Severus, and it had always seemed that Severus had always given as good as she got, had provoked them and caused them to target her. She wasn’t so sure any more. She had never really asked Severus how she felt, and Severus had never really said much aside from her usual nasty comments, so she had assumed that it had had little effect, one of those things that Severus complained about and shrugged off with ease. The idea that it was worse that she’d thought and upset Severus to a deeper degree confused her. It made her wonder, how much else lay beneath the surface, hidden behind the barbs that she had assumed she had been privy too.

Silence returned to the carriage, but it wasn’t the angry silence of earlier. It was a sad silence, with both of them still upset. Upset at each other and upset at the world, but also feeling something therapeutic in the airing of their grievances. As if there was a hope that they might finally manage to talk, to explain things and see the world through each other’s eyes. Severus was curling back up into herself, wrapping herself up in the layers of armour that surrounded her, her prickles once more facing the world to hide the soft underbelly she reluctantly and impulsively revealed, just like a strange hedgehog. Lily was feeling worn out, as if she had aged decades, drained of all energy. They left the carriage silently and headed to their respective parents without saying goodbye. Normally they would have, or maybe travelled back to Cokeworth together. But the separation was good, as if they needed space. Space from each other and space away from Hogwarts. Space away from the rest of the world. It didn’t matter, they would see each other over the summer. It was almost harder to avoid that than to ensure it.


	3. Chapter 3

When Severus got home, she went to her room. It wasn’t like her parents were particularly interested in talking to her. She knew that they both preferred it when she was away at Hogwarts, even if her father hated magic it at least meant she was being magical far away from him. She hated the way in which she had to come home every summer. Even though it was miserable in Slytherin, figuring out a way of fitting in whilst still trying to cling on to her friendship with Lily. Even though at every turn of the corridors the Marauders would be waiting just for her, a prank that was funny for the whole school except their favourite victim. No matter how miserable it might be at Hogwarts, it was still far better than rotting away in Spinner’s End, trapped under the same roof as her parents.

She curled up in a bed that was far more uncomfortable than the generous four-poster bed she slept in in term time. It was the only bed in the room though, and for the first time in a long time she could feel truly alone. She wasn’t, of course. She could hear her father’s voice yelling at her mother, a background sound that played a constant part of life in Spinner’s End, but within her room she could at least hide. He always yelled. 

In all fairness, it wasn’t like the other girls in her dormitory at Hogwarts ever spoke to her. They liked to pretend that she simply didn’t exist, which Severus didn’t mind too much. She preferred being ignored to being picked on. She didn’t mind being a ghost. Not really being a girl to them but just being a part of the scenery to be walked past and left alone. 

She didn’t cry, though maybe that would have been better. She mentally cursed herself, regretting again as she often did the way in which she always seemed to say the wrong thing. 

She knew that all the other students in her year would no doubt be eating their tea with their families, happy reunions. She couldn’t bear the idea of eating anything, definitely not at a table with her parents. The other students had parents who liked them, who had actually wanted them, rather than ones who had always made it quite clear that her birth had effectively ruined their lives. Often she wondered if her father might like her more if she was a boy. She imagined her mother might like her more if she dressed more like a girl, made herself prettier. It wasn’t really like she had a lot of choice, though. Her muggle clothing was limited to the eclectic and ill-fitting assortment of hand-me-downs she had been given. She liked that her robes for Hogwarts, even if they were second hand and cheaper than the nicer robes of many of the other students, were at least the same basic thing. It meant that for the first time in her life she had almost fit in, in that respect at least.

Severus hadn’t eaten much during the day, but she had no appetite so missing a meal meant nothing to her. It wasn’t just the fact that her parents were downstairs and she would do almost anything to avoid them. It wasn’t just that she knew that whatever her mother might have boiled to death would be unpalatable after her months at Hogwarts. She had avoided mealtimes as much as she could since the incident at the lake, shying away from the way that it felt like the whole school was staring at her, as if matching her nether regions that they’d all seen to her face. The mutterings about how she didn’t look like a girl. The horrible sense of shame. The disbelief at the way in which the Marauders had somehow managed to find some way of topping nearly getting her eaten by a werewolf, something she had imagined would be the pinnacle of their torment of her, that a murder attempt had to be the worst they could ever do.

Just as she had suffered with nightmares of a gaping mouth full of sharp teeth, she now felt a constant sense of violation. She could still feel Potter’s fingers, so close to somewhere so private. She didn’t think she would be any more comfortable with that, even if she had been a boy like he had so clearly believed. She was never again going to do as all the purebloods did and wear her robes with just underwear underneath them. She would wear trousers or shorts of some kind, just in case, even if it meant she got mocking comments from the Slytherins if they realised. She didn’t trust the Marauders to not repeat their attack, that they wouldn’t find another way to humiliate her in a similar manner, exposing her. She worried that maybe they would try for her breasts, or to do something that she couldn’t quite comprehend but that filled her with fear. She knew that whatever they might chose to do to her would go unpunished. It always did. Everyone else laughed, except Severus who had never been able to see the funny side.

She was no happier the following morning when she woke up, still in Spinner’s End, the room of her miserable childhood. Alone, at least, but with her parents lurking in the rest of the house, their presence permeating every room even when they weren’t themselves physically present.

“Have you grown again?” Eileen asked angrily, giving her an impatient look when she slunk miserably through the kitchen seeking to escape from the house.

“No,” Severus said, instinctively, hunching over. She had no real idea if she had grown during the year, but she hoped not. She hoped that she wouldn’t have grown enough that she needed a new set of robes, as she knew her mother would be angry, and her father would blame her for costing them more money. She didn’t want to have to go through the painful shopping trip to the second-hand clothes shop of Diagon Alley. She didn’t want to go to school the next year with robes that were too small or too short, knowing that any slight hint of poverty would be met with mockery from both her own House but even more openly by the Marauders. She could still hear some of their stinging words. A part of her wished, suddenly and bitterly, that she could scrape together enough money to buy even just new underwear. Knickers that had never been touched by James Potter, knickers that wouldn’t be ridiculed. Knickers that no one but her had ever seen. She knew that it was a hopeless dream, just as hopeless as hoping that she might be able to one day wear brand new robes. 

She was glad to get out of the house, as she always was. Even the street was better than being inside, where at any moment her mother might criticise her or her father might yell. The fact that her father was at work a lot of the time didn’t help, it just lured her into the false sense of being able to trust her mother. Of hope that the two of them could work together to avoid her father’s temper. Severus had spent too much of her life trusting her mother with her fears, trying to convince her that she shouldn’t accept his abuses, only to have all of the secrets and words she had spoken in confidence repeated verbatim to her father, the anger diverted from mother to daughter. She knew that it was too late, that her mother had chosen her life. Severus didn’t want it to be her life as well that was wrapped up in her father’s will, dominated by him for the rest of eternity.

But even Hogwarts was no longer the safe haven she had imagined it to be as an ill-dressed little girl playing in the dirt and dreaming of greatness. It never really had been, between the Marauders and the rest of her House. She had hoped that she would be in Slytherin like her mother, that there she would fit in and be at hime. Nothing could make her hate her House, as if that would be a betrayal beyond what she would be capable of, just as nothing could make her feel anything but love for the castle itself. But no matter how hard she tried to hide it, Slytherin was hard. She had no doubt that it would be hard in another House too. Magic and Lily kept her going, the two bright spots in her life. Now her friendship with Lily was precariously balancing over a precipice at risk of tumbling down with the slightest push. 

She wandered somewhat aimlessly, finding herself almost naturally at the park where she and Lily had often played as children. She looked longingly at the swings for a moment, wishing that she could swing on them and feel the rush of air as she swooped and soared. She might have considered doing so, had the park been empty. But there were children playing there, and she felt too old to do so as well. Besides, she knew that other people would never welcome her presence. When she had been a child before Hogwarts none of the other children had ever wanted to play with her, except Lily. It hadn’t mattered too much to her then, as they had all been muggles and she had known that she was a witch so she had been able to just brush it off. It had hurt to have that replicated at Hogwarts, where she should have been the same as everyone else. She wondered what Lily was doing, and wished that she could go knock on the Evans’s front door. She didn’t know what to do, aware that their friendship was delicate and that she had to be careful to ensure it didn’t crumble, but unsure what to do. She already felt an unholy guilt, both for calling Lily a mudblood and then for snapping at her on the train. She missed her desperately, already feeling the gaping hole in her heart that Lily had always occupied. 

Lily was glad to be back in Cokeworth and finally away from Hogwarts. Before she had always missed Hogwarts, even as she had missed her family while she was away. Now she felt a degree of certainty in being away from the castle where she felt like there was too much she had to think about. She ignored her school books, leaving her homework for later. She had always arranged with Severus so that they would do their homework together, hidden away in secrecy where no adults would find them. Or openly discussing it in the living room if Petunia happened to be around, just because it would drive her mad. But they hadn’t discussed whether they would do their homework together. Lily wasn’t sure which she would prefer. On the one hand, Severus’s voice saying “mudblood” still echoed through her mind late at night when there was nothing else to distract her from the thoughts. It still hurt, bitterly. She knew what her friends in Gryffindor expected her to do, and she knew that it would undoubtedly be easiest to just go along with what they thought. To finally give up on Severus, abandon her to Slytherin. To preserve her friendships with everyone else rather than put them all at risk by clinging on to the prickliest person she had ever met.

But on the other hand, she still couldn’t shake the way in which everyone else had so casually dismissed Severus being forcibly stripped of her knickers. It made her uncomfortable to think about. She didn’t want to imagine how she would feel if it had happened to her, and she knew that Severus was viciously private. So private that the nature of her private parts had been left to others to decide whether they wanted to consider her a boy or a girl, until those private parts had been exposed completely to the school at large. She didn’t want to think of the way that James Potter constantly asked her out on dates, forcefully and unwilling to accept any of her refusals. She knew that he wanted to get in her pants, wanted to remove them, even if it was only Severus with whom he had done a practice run. 

She couldn’t quite get Severus’s words spoken in desperate misery on the train from her mind either. The suggestion that maybe there were things behind what Lily knew, that Severus suffered more than she had imagined. As if Lily had let her down before Severus had lashed out. As if Lily hadn’t been as good a friend as she had always thought herself to be. 

It lingered in her mind, getting in the way of her enjoying her summer holiday. The days passed slowly and Lily felt cut off from the rest of the world. She had never been one for solitude or silence. That had always been Severus, who was satisfied with her own company. Lily had always been with Petunia or her parents, and then with Severus. She’d been happy to be in a castle filled with other students, chattering as a constant background noise in the Common Room or the corridors. Listening to Sandy Denny alone in her room wasn’t the same as having people around her, even if her parents were hovering anxiously in the house as always, slowly losing their daughter to a world they could never enter. She was unwilling to talk to them, as if there was a chance that revealing that the wizarding world was not as perfect as she’d always made it sound would result in her no longer being allowed to attend Hogwarts. Or maybe they wouldn’t understand why Lily was upset as it was only Severus and she did always bring these things on herself, it was just Lily who was too sensitive. She didn’t know what was worse, so she brushed it all away in favour of music and wandering aimlessly about the town, relearning Petunia’s battered old classical guitar and walking streets she had almost forgotten even existed. 

The town was older and more run-down that she remembered, but that was how it was every year. As if time moved faster in Cokeworth at the same time as it stood entirely still. Not that Lily really knew Cokeworth all that well. She had been born there, lived there all her life, but she’d left to go to Hogwarts and so it was Hogwarts she’d explored. As a child before then her world had been limited even as she’d dreamt of magic with Severus, kept within the confines of the parks and streets around their homes that was never too far from the suspicious eyes of her mother. There were so many places she’d never explored because her exploring was done at Hogwarts. Now she did, feeling strange that she was alone rather than with Severus as it had always been the two of them exploring as they told each other tales of what would happen when they were grown up witches fighting dragons and saving the world. She felt less of that passion now. Now all she wanted was to be able to live in a way that allowed her to be herself, safe and content. The old towpath was just a towpath running alongside a dirty canal populated by grumpy ducks. The grass was ragged, the bushes hiding dog shit. Her dreams of sailing down the canal on a boat seemed far-fetched and unrealistic, more ludicrous than going to a school for magic. It was as tatty as the rest of the town, unwanted and unloved like the people in it.

Lily paused in her walking, recognising the figure sitting against the crumbling stone wall that separated the towpath from what might have been a junkyard or a part of a factory. Lily didn’t know and didn’t care. She considered turning around and walking back the way she had come, knowing that Severus was unlikely to have noticed her. But Lily was brave and Lily had as much right to walk along the towpath as Severus did to sit beside it, pulling petals off flowers. Lily doubted she’d survive the summer alone anyway, it was the sort of loneliness that would drive her to making bad decisions just for some company, like dating James Potter just to have someone be there. Only Severus was closer and even more there, and Lily wanted things to be as alright as they had dreamed as girls.

She crouched down by Severus, knowing that Severus had noticed her. Severus didn’t let herself be distracted, continuing to pluck the petals off the daisy in her hand. Lily could see that she had already made her way through a whole heap of them, with plucked heads lying beside a pile of petals. She could see Severus’s lips mouthing the words even though she knew what it was that Severus was doing without needing to ask.

Severus sighed with the final petal. Lily raised an eyebrow and Severus said, “Loves me not.”

Lily hesitated briefly, before handing Severus another one to start with in the hopes of a better result. She sat down beside her on the grass, watching as Severus plucked the petals again, reciting the words aloud now. Lily didn’t need to be a genius to guess that Severus was asking the flowers about her feelings, even though it was a childish thing to do. The sort of thing silly muggles might do, not a sensible witch. Lily couldn’t begrudge her that though, as it was the sort of mindless misery that was soothing. Watching and listening lulled Lily into a sensation of peace that had been missing, as if they had slipped back through time to a moment when there was no one in the world but them and they had never been anything but best friends.

She joined Severus in smiling in relief when the daisy she had given her lost it’s final petal to the statement “She loves me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Regarding my HP WIPs](https://phantomengineer.dreamwidth.org/5881.html)


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